Diplomatic Victory Revisited

[nbarclay]

For a long time, I shared the opinion of several here that the diplomatic victory option is a bit cheesy (with my apologies to cheese for insulting it so ). And in many situations, I still do. But when I played the Tournament 4 game (far too late for it to be official), I found myself in a position where it actually made perfect sense.

I had destroyed Russia early in the game, and later Rome, and finally Persia, taking control of one side of the world. Three nations were left on the other side - strong America and England and puny Greece - and I found myself on polte terms with all three of them (since we'd been trading partners for eons and never had any reason for conflict).

My Germany was the world's richest, most powerful, most productive, and most scientifically advanced nation. So that left me a choice.

I could start wiping out other nations, but what would be the point of the bloodshed against nations that were friendly toward me? (Yes, I know, there doesn't always have to be a point. )

I could go for a space race victory, but was there any real need for us Germans to hog space for ourselves instead of sharing it with our friends?

Or I could leverage Germany's power to try to forge a new era of peace and cooperation among the world's nations in place of the past era of competition. In the peculiar situation I found myself in, I actually found that to be the most "realistic" of the endgame options available. And the ability to bribe Greece with probably more than a dozen advances, plus plenty of strategic and luxury resources, pretty well guaranteed that I woudln't lose the vote even if I didn't win it . (As it turned out, I didn't get the win until the second ballot.)

I do think it should take more like a two thirds or three fourths supermajority, rather than merely a simple majority, to win a diplomatic victory. Otherwise, it becomes too much of a coin toss if lots of nations are still alive and only two have enough land or population to qualify. (Not to mention the fact that if a large portion of the world opposes the appointment, the most likely outcome is that the U.N. would cease to exist as a world body.) But after this particular game, I don't find the overall concept inherently annoying.

I might also point out that in the real U.N., the Secretary General is NEVER from one of the major powers. So having a U.N. that's willing to accept clear, official long-term leadership from a single major power does demonstrate a level of diplomatic success unmatched in the real world. I think that's sufficient to justify making such success a victory condition, although, as I said above, I think it should require more than a simple majority.

(Another possible twist would be to have two levels of acceptance: nations that actually vote for you and nations willing to accept your leadership even though they voted for someone else. If you only squeak by with a bare majority, but three fourths of the world is willing to accept your leadership once you're voted in, that should be enough. And for that purpose, the size and strength of the nations involved should probably matter since larger, more powerful nations are in a better position to defy the U.N. if they so choose. Anyhow, something along those lines would make the diplomatic victory option a lot more believable.)

By the way, I posted a story based on the game to the Stories forum in case anyone's interested.

[lockstep]

Originally posted by nbarclay
I do think it should take more like a two thirds or three fourths supermajority, rather than merely a simple majority, to win a diplomatic victory. Otherwise, it becomes too much of a coin toss if lots of nations are still alive and only two have enough land or population to qualify.

I won't rant about the superior way SMAC handled the diplomatic victory - at least, until an expansion pack to Civ3 is released and the U.N. still sucks. However, what I'd really like to see in a patch is voting power that is dependend on the civ's population instead of the current one-civ-one-vote rule. That's not to say that a population ratio of, say, 9:1 should translate into a vote ratio of 9:1 (this would make diplo victory too similar to domination). Rather a function a la

U.N. votes = square root (total no. of population points)

would be advisable. This way, a) size would matter when it comes to voting b) it would still make sense to form loyal friendship with smaller civs instead of conquering their cities, because the former would result in a higher total number of votes for your civ. Such a system - combined with the requirement of a supermajority to become U.N. president - would definitely improve the diplo victory IMO.

P.S.: And the builder of the U.N. could receive a 50% bonus on his no. of votes, so that smaller civs still had a fair chance to get elected. (SMAC anyone?)

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by lockstep

P.S.: And the builder of the U.N. could receive a 50% bonus on his no. of votes, so that smaller civs still had a fair chance to get elected. (SMAC anyone?)

A 50% bonus would give way too much of an advantage to a big, powerful nation that builds the wonder. A small, relatively fixed number of votes (for example, 5% of the total vote goes to the U.N.'s builder and the other 95% is cast normally) would make more sense, and would at least somewhat realistically reflect the prestige that comes from being home to the U.N.

I do like the idea of making each nation's voting power in the U.N. somewhat dependent on its size. Big, powerful nations would be unlikely to give the U.N. much more than symbolic power without such a stipulation.

[notyoueither]

The bottom line is that the game would benefit from a more sophisticated mechanism for diplomatic victory.

I built the UN. I won the vote by 3 to 2. A box popped up and told me so. Fini. Too bland.

Refinements have been indicated to be in the works. It seems to be indicated that major adjustments may be included in patches. They already have been. Hopefully the victory sequences may be some of them in the future. Viva the designers. If they die, I'll kill them!

Although it does seem to be more an XP item.

Salve

[aahz_capone]

That, and the fact that the UN should open up multinational projects (or multi-civ) like in SMAC. There should be more to a UN meeting then just deciding who wins.

[DilithiumDad]

AS in SMAC, Diplomatic Victory provides a quick but unsatisfying way of ending the game. I tried ending a game two ways using intermediate saves. Gifting a single tech (Computers) to three factions made the difference between victory and defeat in the election, so I don't think you even have to give up all your gold and tech to win (although you might as well, I suppose, because you can't take it with you!).

By the way, slogging through 8 more tech advances to get the Spaceship plus the Longevity wonder and 32 years of pop growth, only increased my score from about 2400 to about 2700 and I still only got "Saint Joan the Great". So next time I will just take the Diplomatic Victory and concentrate on honing my early game.

[Scooby_Doo]

I think the diplo victory and the UN could have been two very different things.

I think the ideas already said about altering the number of votes and so on is very good and I would be more than happy to accept that as the diplo victory.
However, the UN itself should have had so much more influence in the game, imagine if the UN had the power to ground spaceships for a period of time (lots of bribery needed here!), call an end to wars or force civs to donate money and techs to less powerful rulers (OK, that may not suit all but ideas such as this seem good...)
The UN, in my opinion, could have single-handedly spiced up the endgame as tiny civs band together to prevent a spaceship launch or something and it could also have helped to balance the endgame and give smaller civs a chance to swing things perhaps.

Who knows? I think its a missed opportunity though.

[nbarclay]

In my diplomatic victory, the closest I came to giving up gold was that giving up tech cost me some opportunities to get gold later. I gave a huge amount of tech, strategic resources, and luxury goods to a tiny nation that couldn't afford to pay for them, but I still sold them enough to get all the gold they could spare so my generosity didn't really cost me anything there. (I very likely even made a pofit by increasing Greece's wealth and thus its ability to pay for techs later.) With the other two major powers, if I recall correctly, I gave them one tech each, sold them other tech at lower prices instead of waiting until they could pay more, and signed right of passage agreements and mutual protection pacts, and that was eventually enough to swing one of their votes in my direction.

Also note that as far as I'm concenred, in the endgame playing for a diplomatic victory, there is no reason not to give free techs to friendly nations that can't afford to pay. The same goes for strategic and luxury resources that would otherwise just be sitting there doing nothing. After all, the whole idea of a diplomatic victory (at least in my mind) is to create a new era where cooperation at least mostly replaces competition. Isn't it only proper that a nation trying to create such an era be generous with other nations that are less fortunate?

I have serious doubts that I could enjoy trying to win a diplomatic victory by making major sacrifices to buy votes. That doesn't particularly fit my character (at least where gameplay is concerned). But when a golden opportunity to gain a diplomatic victory without costing my own nation much came my way, I was able to get "in character" as a bringer of peace, harmony, and mutual prosperity to the world, and that made it fun.

Nathan